Pravin,
re: The MXi from Cyrix will only lack RAM and disk. I expect integrated 2D/3D graphics performance to be comparable to Banshee. In addition, DVD MPEG2 video and AC3 audio, 56K modem, memory controller, and just about everything else will be integrated with a greater than PentiumII performance processor for about $150.
I'll have to see it to believe it. I fully expect the integrated 2D/3D graphics performance to be no where near the performance of the Banshee. Where do they get all that 3D graphics expertise? It's not hatched fully grown. The DVD MPEG2 expertise they get from Mediamatics acquisition under the National Semi umbrella. But even they are not sure what will be in hardware and what will be software modules.
Also, I have heard much talk about "3D" graphics performance of the next-gen CPUs, but I have heard little about how they plan on doing the rendering and set-up in hardware. I've heard lots of stuff on how they plan on accelerating the geometry (transformations) through better SIMD floating point pipelines.
And also, if Cyrix manages to squeeze that much functionality onto one chip, I'd bet it would be one major heat source. Rather than throwing the kitchen sink into one chip (a la mPact chip's semi-failed effort), perhaps they should just concentrate on getting a fast CPU core and leave the other compute-intense parts like MPEG2/AC3 decode and 2D/3D to other chip makers. That would also give them so flexibility of configuration.
Do you have any references on where Cyrix has made all these bold claims? Even the AMD K6+3D chip will need an additional accelerator for rendering + set-up (see boot Jan 98 issue). But, if for some reason, they are able to get all the logic crammed into a single chip, I need to track it.
-Bill |
